Cartoons About Supervillains: New ‘Despicable Me’ and ‘Megamind’ Trailers

Unfortunately for both of them, two upcoming movies this year came up with the same innovative idea: cast a supervillain as the hero. So which is better, Steve Carell’s Despicable Me or Will Ferrell’s Megamind?

Despicable Me, which just released a full-length third trailer, seems to be having a hard time explaining its plot. At first, it was about a brilliant supervillain bent on stealing the world’s landmarks. Then, it was about a bumbling supervillain trying to compete with a nerdier, smarter rival. Now it’s about a supervillain trying to raise three young girls. So I guess it’s technically about all of those things, but I couldn’t tell you what the “main” plot is.

Head over to Apple to check out the trailer, or if you don’t care about quality just watch it below:

Megamind, meanwhile, doesn’t have a plot at all — at least so far. The teaser it just released is only forty seconds long, probably doesn’t contain any footage from the actual movie, and isn’t particularly clever:

Despite the predictably all-star cast — Ferrell, Brad Pitt, Tina Fey, Jonah Hill — all we got is the basic cartoons-dance-to-popular-song-because-that-is-automatically-hilarious technique. Which was last used on Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel.

Possible silver lining: Pitt as the movie’s requisite superhero.

The movie also went through rounds of inane title-changing. First it was called Master Mind. Then Oobermind. Now it’s Megamind. So when Ultramind or Incredimind arrives at your nearby theater in November, it’s probably just this.

Despicable Me, while it doesn’t have quite the star power (supporting voices include Jason Segel, Russell Brand, Kristen Wiig, and Will Arnett) opens in July and looks like it has a more creative story, so I give it the edge. I have the slightest hunch that Toy Story 3 will beat both, though.

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I disagree. I think that Megamind was better, because of the contrast with the hero. Despicable me was just about two villains duking it out, while Megamind had the interesting premise of what a villain does after the hero is dead, and eventually becoming the hero himself.